The Siege of Tobruk lasted some 241 days from 10 April 1941 until 27 November of the same year. During the entire siege Tobruk remained a painful thorn in the side of German Lieutenant General Erwin Rommel who desperately needed that key sea port town to provide vital logistical support for his far flung Afrika Korps in order to continue his military offensive against the British into Egypt. His closest base of logistical support lay in the port of Tripoli, almost a thousand miles away across North Africa. Everything necessary to sustain his army in battle had to travel on a long, arduous overland trip oftentimes in the teeth of Allied air support.